Author: Kyle Wang

Links to this week's readings can be found at: https://linktr.ee/1882WeeklyReadings This week, we're looking at the messy intersections of food and culture with hopes of untangling the ways in which Orientalist tropes often reappear in disguise as multiculturalism. Can food truly act as a space for unproblematic cultural exchange? How can we create a vision of multiculturalism that centers not only the food itself but the people who make it?  Readings: Anthony Bourdain (articles linked above) — In an era in which the hunger for “culturally authentic”…

Notes and questions for Part I of Said's Orientalism can be found here. You can register for our upcoming Book Chats at: https://linktr.ee/1882foundation In Part II of Orientalism, Said continues with his description of the historical underpinnings of Orientalist thinking, shifting his attention to the modern foundations of Orientalism in 18th-century Europe. As Europe / the West progressed technologically, Said explains that Orientalists began viewing Asia as a place which could regenerate Europe spiritually. Orientalism in the 1800s thus introduced a new philosophical development: the Orient as…

Following last week's discussion of Orientalism, we're shifting our focus to the idea of homeland — as culture, as concept, as a real or imagined place. In an era where xenophobia and racism reign and mass consumption has reduced “culture” to a corporate buzzword, the question we want to focus on this week is: what does a meaningful connection to homeland look like?  “Here on the earth where bones are buried, the question remains: if the birds of history alight by a ritual of body…